In certain types of transportation systems, such as, in state-of-the-art high speed railway and/or mass and rapid transit operations, it is advantageous to provide improved wheel spin detection and correction equipment so that passengers will not experience a noisy uncomfortable rough ride and so that wear and shelling occurs on the tread of the wheels which can lead to subsequent damage to bearings, truck, motors and lading are avoided. The definition of wheel spin refers to the acceleration of a vehicle wheel at a rate exceeding that corresponding to the rate of acceleration of the vehicle caused by excessive propulsion force or tractive effort to the wheel or loss of wheel-to-rail adhesion during the application of normal propulsion power. In railroad operations, the term adhesion means the coefficient friction between the wheel and rail. In a propulsion mode, adhesion is established by applying tractive force to the wheel and finding the force at which spinning occurs under various wheel, rail, track, climatic and equipment conditions. In practice, the typical adhesion values with steel wheels and steel rails range from about 7% to 25% depending upon speed, type of track and wheel conditions. It will be appreciated that the contact area between a rigid steel wheel and the steel rail is small, ranging from about one-third (1/3) to three-quarters (3/4) of a square inch depending upon the wheel size, the contour of the wheel thread and rail head and the weight on the wheel. It will be apparent that when a wheel spins the adhesion is less than when the wheel is normally rotating and rolling on the rail. As previously noted, a spinning rotation condition can cause severe wheel and rail damage. Previously, locomotives and modern multiple unit passenger trains were normally equipped with a conventional traction or power wheel spin detection and correction system. These prior systems generally detected if the speed of an axle is going faster than the train speed so that a power cutback will allow the wheels to slow down to the train speed. Thereafter, the propulsion power is automatically reapplied at a controlled rate to the degree called for by the position of the throttle. In previous wheel slip spin systems, it was necessary to perform a wheel size calibration or normalization procedure before proper operation could be achieved which is time consuming and requires additional processing functions. This precludes the diagnostic testing since there is not enough of available processing time.